ENGL 215 - Movie Medievalisms

According to Hollywood, the Middle Ages were a time of bewitching enchantment and horrifying savagery. Audiences love escaping into the worlds of historical epics like Kingdom of Heaven, raunchy comedies like The Little Hours, heartwarming tales like Catherine, Called Birdy, and eerie mysteries like The Name of the Rose. This course focuses on how these “movie medievalisms” represent the idea of the Middle Ages through story, cinematography, music, dialogue, casting, and dialect. We ask questions like: How much do these movies really have to do with the historical Middle Ages? Do they illuminate truths or manufacture lies, and when does it matter? Was this time period really as exciting, romantic, and dangerous as we imagine? Our critical methods include literary, historical, and theoretical studies of the films and the medieval texts that inspired them. The final project invites you to develop your own script for a film rooted in the Middle Ages. In the end, we find out what modern movies say not just about medieval societies, but about ourselves. Offered in alternate years. (4 Credits)